The Unlearning Playground

The Unlearning Playground is a self improvement podcast by Chetan Narang, a software engineer by degree, but a teacher, life coach and a philosopher at heart.

The podcast is designed to dive deep into important questions centred around mental health and spiritual health in the modern world. The episodes are a mix of potent and easily applicable life lessons for your everyday life and direct, honest answers to the most significant questions you can come up with. The aim is to help people think better, to understand themselves, others & Life better, and to help them simplify their lives to make space for what really matters - to them, to their loved ones & to all of us.

We discuss mental health, spiritual health, philosophy, spirituality, life lessons, quotes, books, cognitive biases and meditations to get to the root of Life, not just to scratch the surface, trying to never lose sight of what's true in favour of what's comfortable - with the overarching focus being more compassion and higher consciousness for everyone, especially for the ones who are ready.

Spend time with me here with an open mind and an open heart, and you'll see your mental & spiritual health improving big time. I guarantee that.

All my work - https://chetannarang.org/

Last refreshed: August 20th, 2025 at 9:11 PM ⓘ

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Episodes

0019 - 3 examples of stereotypes in everyday life | Understand & overcome outgroup homogeneity bias

The human mind has a tendency to over-homogenize its outgroups. Statements and narratives that generalise and stereotype our outgroups seem to be more easily acceptable to us than we would expect from our rational selves. Join me in this episode as I talk about the outgroup homogeneity bias. I know it’s a bit of a mouthful, but it is one of those cognitive biases that is actually very fascinating once understood properly. Like most of my episodes, I talk about how to go about understanding this ...

Aug 18, 2022•8 min

0018 - Three issues with religions today, and how we can solve them.

In the modern world, there are three broad kinds of issues we face when it comes to perceiving and talking about religion, god and spirituality. Join me as I walk you through these three problems and how we can go about solving them. After all, the greatest merit in pointing out problems lies in at least trying to put forward solutions too. That’s exactly what I’m doing in this episode. The content here is not specific to any single religion, or even any specific train of thought. I claim that i...

Jul 28, 2022•22 min

0017 - Unlearning the attachment to victimhood

An old quote of mine reads, “ More than being identified with the victim in your story, be identified with the observer of it. The latter is closer to the truth. ” In this episode of The Unlearning Playground, I expand on what I mean when I say this. Like most of my everyday-life advice episodes, this one is also centred around wisdom that’s applicable to and is pragmatically focussed on our day-to-day lives. And you’ll also see why this is quite a necessary collective message for our times too,...

Jul 14, 2022•12 min

0016 - 2 modern-day examples of the framing effect | being pro-life or pro-choice & the wage gap

The framing effect is one of the easiest cognitive biases to understand and make sense of. Join me, Chetan Narang, in this episode of The Unlearning Playground podcast as I walk through an easy explanation for the same. In addition to just talking about the framing effect, I talk about how it is very easily spotted in our modern day public discourse atmosphere via two frames or narratives that sway most of us enough to end up hating the other side of the argument. One of the topics I've picked u...

Jun 30, 2022•23 min

0015 - 1 powerful way to understand reincarnation, rebirth & karma - A simple nondual explanation

For almost all of us, the way in which we perceive the idea of reincarnation, rebirth and karma - both believers as well as skeptics - is limited. Join me, Chetan Narang , in this episode of The Unlearning Playground podcast to go into the depth of understanding these heavy terms. We unpack what these terms do not mean, what are the misconceptions surrounding them in our everyday interpretations of them, what we need to let go to actually digest the nectar of what they were always meant for. I t...

Jun 16, 2022•18 min

0014 - 1 practical advice about words, quotes & misinterpretations

So much of our waking lives revolve around words that we barely get time to think about what is the right relationship to have with our own words. We interpret everything – all the quotes we read, all the videos we watch, all the podcasts we listen, all the conversations we have, all the social media posts we consume – all of it passes through the mental models engrained in our minds. The path from these interpretations being just interpretations to them becoming truths should be one we carefull...

Jun 02, 2022•17 min

0013 - How important is money?

Money is not everything but it is something. While most of us agree on this basic statement, we still do not quite understand what is the right relationship to have with money. How much money is too much money? How much money is enough? What is the right way to think about money? These are some questions that remain perpetually unanswered for a lot of us, in the busy lives that we lead these days. With the employee performance appraisal season right around the corner in the Indian economic cycle...

May 06, 2022•23 min

Trailer: Unlearn with Chetan Narang, at The Unlearning Playground

Want to thank yourself later for having spent some quality time on the internet finally? You are at the right place. Unlearn with me at The Unlearning Playground Podcast. Let's get to the root of philosophy, spirituality, self, god and all of that jazz while never letting go of the truth in favour of what's comfortable. Let's unlearn our biases and delusions and attune ourselves to critical thinking. Let's step up our games so we can collectively play the game better. Let's get into the playgrou...

May 04, 2022•2 min

0012 - 4 utilities of understanding true spirituality | Engineering a utopia | The dream of Life

A meditative discourse on spirituality, philosophy and its utility in our everyday lives. I walk through an understanding of the root of eastern philosophy - The Advaita Vedanta or Nonduality - via the metaphor of dreams. And then I talk about how the realisations that follow this understanding, can actually lead to a better future for ourselves, for humanity and for Life at large. Did I do any justice to the big claims? Only one way to find out. Tune right in. I'll see you in the playground. &l...

Apr 12, 2022•24 min

0011 - 1 simple solution for anxiety | A short, fresh perspective on perfect and good

A short and fresh perspective about a quote that I find to be amongst the most potent ones ever - "Perfect is the enemy of good." I think this episode is far from perfect, but it is good. Practice what you preach, eh? Tune right in. I’ll see you in the playground. -------------- Check out all of my work on my website - https://chetannarang.org/ For one-on-one personal sessions for philosophical mentorship & counselling with me - https://chetannarang.org/nondual-philosophical-counselling-ment...

Apr 03, 2022•6 min

0010 - Experiencing vs Remembering Self | Cognitive biases

Another standalone episode in our series about human cognitive biases and logical fallacies. And I dare say, this is amongst the most “useful” episodes I would do in this series. If you let it, the concept covered in these ten minutes has the power to change the way you’ve been thinking about your life thus far. Am I exaggerating? Only one way to find out. Tune right in. I’ll see you in the playground. === Outline === (00:00) - Intro (00:44) - The two selves, experiencing self & remembering ...

Mar 17, 2022•10 min

0009 - Cognitive load | Ego depletion | Cognitive biases

Another episode in our series of episodes about human cognitive biases. In this one, I talk about Cognitive load , which is an overarching phenomenon that affects our moment-to-moment state of being and thus, affects our ability to make decisions, to understand and process information - in short, it affects how we think. And hence, being aware of it is important. I also briefly touch upon the need for meditation , and why it is something that everyone should incorporate in their everyday lives. ...

Feb 25, 2022•12 min

0008 - We see the world as we are | Cognitive biases | Logical fallacies

Join me as I build on one of the most influential quotes I've had the good fortune of coming across - "We see the world as we are, not as the world is." Cognitive biases and logical fallacies govern so much of our day-to-day thinking that it's almost mind-boggling when we encounter them for the first time. In this episode, I talk about the three levels at which our perceptions color the world we see. Something that I always talk about is how you need to become the adult you never had around you ...

Feb 12, 2022•15 min

0007 - Being better at relationships | What does love look like? | Kindness | Rocco Jarman

Most of human life is relationships - personal, professional, casual. Join me as I walk you through an extremely potent and a really effective method that has the power to improve all your relationships manifold. It is based on a meditation that my friend Rocco Jarman shared with me quite recently. Like most of the man's work, it is powerful, it is moving and it is worth looking at with eyes wide open. And as is the case with most life-transforming things, all that’s needed of you is an open min...

Jan 14, 2022•10 min

0006 - Simplify your life | Work-life balance

In the name of development and progress, we modern humans have complicated our lives way more than needed. And in the name of paying our bills or advancing our careers or earning a livelihood or being independent, we complicate them even more. Isn't this true? It is. It most definitely is. This episode is an attempt from my side to make you, the listener, think deeper on this subject. It is an invitation to reconsider HOW you are leading your life, not WHAT you are doing in it. We need to have t...

Dec 27, 2021•17 min

0005 - The truth about God | Understanding over believing | Who am I?

An episode dedicated to God - what the word actually means. Absorbing the content here should give you a whole lot of clarity about these burning questions we all have about God: Is there a creator? What are the atheists missing? What does the word God really mean? Where do most religions converge in their teachings? What is the real answer to that age-old question “Who am I”? In the information age, it’s downright unfortunate that the majority of us still don’t even have a hint of this understa...

Dec 15, 2021•20 min

0004 - Going within | Ego, self & illusions | Know thyself

One of the most potent advice you can give someone is to ask them to go within, or to know themselves. We have all heard the old sayings from eastern philosophy. "Go within." "Know thyself." I try in this episode to throw some light on these beautiful sayings. Join me as I walk you through a basic introduction to what it means to go within, what is the ego, what is the self and what are some illusions surrounding them. Jiddu Krishnamurti, or Uncle JK as I fondly call him, used to say, "When I un...

Dec 01, 2021•16 min

0003 - Is there a creator? | God - The creator fallacy

Ironically, one of the most important words that mankind ever came up with is also one of the most misinterpreted words of all time. That word is "God". And that word also forms the bedrock of some of the most potent questions a human being can ask: Is there a God? Is there a Creator? Are the atheists right? Do you believe in a God? What is the creator fallacy? Is there some truth about God? What must we unlearn about God? As with most important things in Life, it is not learning new things that...

Nov 24, 2021•9 min

0002 - Being one with everything | 1 very easy way to understand this | The separation fallacy

If anyone asks me what is the one thing everyone should realise but doesn't, I would send them this episode of mine. There is of course a lot of unlearning that needs to happen to really enable absorbing all of it and let it change the way you perceive the world, and that is exactly what The Unlearning Playground is all about. The separation fallacy is one of the most fundamental ways in which the truth evades us, but it is so hardwired into the way we lead our lives that it is almost impossible...

Nov 19, 2021•11 min

0001 - Introduction to The Unlearning Playground

There is an old Buddhist quote that says, " Learning to unlearn is the highest form of learning. " I, Chetan Narang , firmly stand by that quote as I introduce you to my podcast, The Unlearning Playground . More often than not, the biggest blocker standing between us and the truth is our idea that we already have it. Getting to the truth then, is more an act of unlearning falsities rather than learning anything new. This podcast is an attempt from my side to collate a whole bunch of things that ...

Nov 09, 2021•6 min

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